Act I of ShakespeareÆs King Lear involves the initial actions of the destruction of the prevailing order. The destruction of the old order cuts across a number of different dimensions, including the personal, familiar, social, natural, and divine. This analysis will discuss the destruction of the old order by showing evidence of how these five orders are destroyed.
Act I opens with King LearÆs announcement that he is about to destroy the old social order. He is aged and intends to divide his kingdom into three portions, one for each of his daughters. Whichever daughter professes the most love for Lear will receive the richest portion of the kingdom. Cordelia loves Lear the most but refuses to flatter him like her older sisters, Regan and Goneril. Cordelia maintains she cannot ôheave her heart into her mouthö and replies with ôNothing, my lord,ö when Lear asks her what she has to profess to him, (Shakespeare, I.i.90-91; 86). Lear becomes enraged, disowns Cordelia, and splits his kingdom between Goneril and Regan. In this, we have the breakdown of the old social order, as Goneril and Regan basically become co-queens of Britain, and the breakdown of the familiar as Cordelia is disowned by her father.
The familiar will breakdown even further when Goneril abuses Lear while staying at her castle. She refuses to permit him to keep his full retinue of knights. He becomes angry and is determined to go stay with Regan, where he is certain he will be treated fairly and with love. When he discovers this is not the case, we see the destruction of the personal. Lear now knows his two eldest daughters do not love him, are power hungry, and hope to see his remaining authority eroded. At the end of Scene V, feeling broken and bereft, Lear maintains, ôO let me not be mad, not mad, sweet heaven!ö (Shakespeare, I.v.38). Lear has lost his old identity and sense of person to the point he believes
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